Sue M

When I saw an opportunity to review this book I was attracted to it as I had previously read "The Second Life of Mireille West" by Amanda Skenandore, which describes life at the Carville facility during the 1920s. During this period Hansen's Disease was considered a contagious disease and contact with patients was greatly feared. This book reveals that with the intervening years between the 1920s and the 1950s, medicine had been developed to treat this disease and while patients still carried the stigma which resulted in incarceration at the only facility in the U.S., i.e., Carville; there were patients who eventually got released.

It appears that the stringent rules in the 20's were somewhat mitigated as the years and medicine advanced. In the 50s is appeared that particularly for the younger ones, they didn't get penalized for sneaking outside the confines of the fencing to go down to the Mississippi River on some evenings.

I enjoyed the book very much and I understand that the author was retelling her father's story she did not wish to alter the true ending of this story. But I disliked Victor's brother Henry and the fact that he was so controlling over Victor that he acquiesced to change the direction of his own future. At least I wanted to know whether Victor continued his musical studies in NYC, whether he ever reached out to Ruth and her child, or just pretended that Ruth and Ba never existed.